City of Sugar Hill Youth Council Session
Wednesday, October 11th, 2017 5:30 P.M.
City Hall Council Chambers,
5039 West Broad Street
Sugar Hill, GA 30518
Members in Attendance: Kaan Cubukcu, Ethan Shaw, Nida Merchant, Camryn Flores, Laura Ann Acker, Maya Chande, Camden Doker
Meeting called to order at 5:30 pm
Previous meeting’s minutes were approved.
Mike mentioned to the Youth Council that he would like us to prepare a mock political campaign speech for city council, in order to cement our beliefs and positions. Anticipate next week a speech, along with a 3 minute question-answer. Demonstrate an understanding of the city and the problems facing it.
Amendment to the Agenda:
- Append – Red Ribbon Week
Council Reports:
- Ethan went to Massachusetts to tour colleges over the weekend; at Yale, he was introduced to the Model UN program. He has reached out to GSMST’s program (Lanier does not have one) and believes there is potential for Youth Council involvement.
- Spencer, Kaan, Ethan, and Camryn had a band competition on Saturday, where they scored straight superiors.
Red Ribbon Week:
- Similar to GUIDE, doing a red ribbon campaign to raise awareness for drugs and alcohol.
- High school involvement? Council says yes
- Oct 23 – Oct 31
- Passing out red ribbon stickers (not real ribbons due to time constraints) with the intent of doing real red ribbons next year.
- Will help to establish Sugar Hill presence in the schools & advertise the Youth Ambassadors.
Organization and Preparation:
- The Council worked on organizing their documents
- Mike suggested that the council leave behind enough information to show sequential years’ councils to learn from and improve upon
- Laura Ann made an example of Lanier’s CDAT, which uses a goal/log system to keep students on track and also leave a paper trail that shows which things take less/more time than expected, allowing the next iteration to be more informed and streamlined.
- Camryn brought up the SCRUM format of organization, which may help with efficiency and organization
- Mike pointed out that since we only meet once a week, the format would have to be adapted, but a nested google drive system would allow this kind of documentation of the processes
Youth Initiative Presentations:
- Ethan presented his idea for a parade. Mike “shut him down” because it’s futile to explore a parade without a backbone event to pin it on.
- Mike’s opinion is that an event with 5k-8k participants would be enough to warrant a parade, but none less
- Camden offered that we might tie the parade to some sort of national holiday
- Nida presented her idea for the Youth Ambassadors to reach out more into the community to tie into other organizations, for example the Women’s club. She wants to, over the next three years, pivot away from the Youth Council’s leadership and allow the Ambassadors to expand to be its own organization. She wants to increase application rigor and maintain energy and enthusiasm.
- Kaan emphasized the importance of heavy recruitment of Freshmen and Sophomores, in order to maintain the program in the following years.
- Mike offered that any club should expect 25-50% attrition over the course of the first month or so, so it’s important to continue recruiting in order to keep up morale and energy.
- Maya proposed to have an “International Day of Peace” around the end of September of next year, which might entail a number of booths for charities and civic/peace organizations, and associated games, prizes, and other activities.
- Mike pointed out that events are ‘designed’ to make economic ripples and draw attention to the city, and some tweaking might help make that “catch” happen as well.
- The rest of the members will present next week.
The remainder of the agenda was tabled for the next meeting.
At 6:57, Nida motioned to adjourn the meeting, and Camden seconded the motion.
